Panevėžys

How ironic that the longer I spend on this internet-focused (no pun intended) course the more I move away from the internet, or rather the more I move away from concentrating on presenting photographs on a screen. I think I’ve also pretty much established the fact that I’m not in the least interested in where the future of photojournalism and documentary photography lies (it’s a valid debate certainly, but why get caught up in it when what I really want to do has little to do with it?), so here I am, spending what little spare time I have travelling somewhere for a day or two to continue my Nokia experiments and printing new and old Nokia pictures and generally getting more and more excited by print photography by the minute. Maybe living in the past isn’t the best way of moving forwards, but I have to follow my instincts and do what I like doing best after all. Although I feel worryingly distanced from the course at the moment (although maybe I shouldn’t be worried, it is distance learning isn’t it?) I’m far from slacking from the job at hand. Much is afoot at the moment, with an imminent interview with Antanas Sutkus on the horizon and the idea of developing what I write from it into something much bigger, ambitious plans for future photographic projects that having nothing to do with me taking photographs and everything to do with my fascination with print publishing, photography and 20th-century Eastern European history (more of that in a later post) and the early planning stage of exhibiting my Nokia portfolio in a Lithuanian supermarket. Of the Sutkus project I was touched by the girls at work who turned up at my apartment last night to eat my food and get drunk with the large new book of Sutkus’ photography for me as a present. As I mentioned before, Sutkus needs more exposure in the West, something I think I can help achieve, plus if I do end up presenting my Lithuanian project as my final degree piece then it’ll be with more than a passing nod to Sutkus’ work (I think I’ve written here about Daily Lives Revisited already). So, babbling aside, all in all I’m more than busy developing work, albeit slightly out of the university loop. One thing I do know for sure is that you can’t work seriously with photography if you’ve got a day job. Not a lot I can do about that at the moment, but something that needs to be remedied sooner or later. What I really want to do is mess about with tutors and prints, something you can’t do with a website. What I really really want to do is produce a box set of my Nokia portfolio and throw the bloody thing away and get on with the next project. I feel I’ve invested a lot with my Nokia and would like to see it through to completion. It’s interesting that despite the proliferation of mobile phone photography in the world (see my previous post), I get the impression I’m one of a very small collection of photographers (who you could probably count on one hand) with a solid portfolio of serious mobile phone documentary photography work. I wanted to write here something about my reasons behind my choice of camera but the subject has once again escaped me. As the portfolio goes together, this will become easier to do. In a nutshell, I’ve yet to discover anything else that gives a photographer the freedom to work in the streets and produce portraits that go to the very soul of the subjects. Claptrap perhaps, but I really do see this with my pictures, and I really do feel it when I’ve got the space and am without the distractions. Tomorrow I take a two-hour bus trip to Panevėžys, Lithuania’s fifth city, to continue with the Daily Lives Revisited project. If you still haven’t had a look at the work of Antanas Sutkus, I really recommend that you do. I also hope that as of 2010, the course dedicates at least half a lesson during the first term of the new intake of students on the subject of documentary photography behind the Iron Curtain. I still can’t quite believe that such a hugely important social experiment is completely overlooked. Right then, back to the printing.

Ha

http://photojojo.com/uncut/2009/07/04/most-popular-camera-online/

Speechless

Funny

But the project is turning into what I originally envisaged.

Where do I go from here?

It’s quite a serious question. It’s a very serious question in fact. Never before did I need or realise the importance of some guidance. One thing I know for certain is that the photography (and the method in which it’s presented) that goes to making up my final project has to represent me 100%. This is why I have to keep pushing with the mobile phone work, despite it not being fully understood by either myself or anybody else. I’m also fully aware that I’m not in the least bit interested in contemporary ways of showing my work. Publishing, print, is where it’s at. I’m continuing to print up my work, which not only confirms my belief in traditional print publishing but that also serves as an extremely effective way of showing myself what it is I’m doing. You simply can’t measure your work when it’s online. So, move forwards with the mobile phone work and present it in print form. I’m still fascinated with the postcard format and want to produce my work in that format. I also need to decide whether to work on an entirely new project or whether to present the best of my mobile phone work since I started messing around with it two years ago. The day before yesterday I took a train to the Lithuanian coast with the idea of taking pictures that might contribute to a project representing what interests me about Lithuania. After checking out of my hotel yesterday I took my bag to the train station, left it in a locker and decide to get the first bus that came along, ride it to the end of the line and walk back into the city centre taking pictures as I went. Mildly successful, the experiment also confirmed something I think I’ve touched on here before, namely that the streets of Lithuania are as good as empty. It’s not a great place to drown in street photography. Partly because of this I’m more and more convinced that a retrospective of my mobile phone work, both in black and white and colour, is the way forwards. I’ve been collecting books of postcards and other ways of presenting groups of postcards and am now looking at doing a series of postcards taken in Lithuania, Poland, the UK, Albania, Greece and other places I’ve visited over the last two years and packed in an envelope-like contraption. I want to do this as manually as possible, and have been taking these presentation cardboard envelope packages apart to make some templates for creating my own packaging. I’ve also been thinking a lot about printing. A designer friend has been showing me the different ways printing acts on a photograph and I’m enjoying experimenting with this. I’m even thinking about getting some of my mobile phone pictures made into negatives to see how they print up. Slightly mad for sure, but I’m intrigued to see how they turn out. A carefully printed, hand-made pack of postcards representing the best of my work seems to me to be the way forward. I never asked to get so involved in these mobile phone pictures, but for some reason I’m addicted to playing with them. As always I just wish I had more time. It’s Sunday morning and not only is the light completely shit for taking pictures but I’ve got a whole load of other work to be getting on with. Oh to be rich and to have lots of time. This blog remains incoherent. I need to start talking to tutors and to keep moving forwards with my presentation and print experiments.